“Little Engine” is a somewhat disturbing Eminem track, where Em raps about his violent habits and being psychologically unstable. Over an eerie beat, Em mentions his “evil intent” and drug abuse.

The track is one of three on the album that uses a sample from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 album of the same name as this one, Music to Be Murdered By, as the introduction of this track comes from Hitchcock’s “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You.”

In a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone Em revealed how this song’s title was involved in his childhood:

I just never really got into books. My great-aunt Edna, she would read to me sometimes, like The Little Engine That Could.